MCCAFFERY'S WAR IS JUST PLAIN IGNORANT

"It would be sending the wrong message to our nation's children." "Drug use
would skyrocket." Those were the words of Gen. Barry McCaffery speaking on
medical marijuana initiatives in various states, including California's
Prop 215.

After the latest National Household Survey on Drug Abuse was released, the
general is eating his own words, though he's far too busy dreaming up some
other dead horse to whip. The survey showed a decline in marijuana use
among teens, despite "the message."

The news is a double-edged sword, of course. That teens are using less
marijuana is good news, but it is also bad news because of the fact that
teens are using more of the hard drugs like heroin.

Policies, like politics, often leave one to decide between the lesser of
two evils, and choosing heroin over marijuana is not the lesser of two
evils. Choosing stupidity and rhetoric over of rational policies, is not
the lesser of two evils. Choosing a "war" over "harm reduction" is just
plain ignorance.

Albert Einstein once said, "You cannot solve today's problems by using the
level of thinking that created them in the first place." Yet some still
believe that prohibition and imprisonment is the answer to a complex
problem. It isn't. If it were, 60 years of prohibition and punitive
measures would have wiped out drug use altogether.

Instead, we're left with a nation still choosing between two evils,
ignorance and stupidity. But who is paying the price? The thousands of
teenagers who have chosen heroin over marijuana, that's who.

The lesser of two evils is still evil, but marijuana is the creation of
God, heroin is the creation of man. Whom do you trust more with your children?

JIM WHITE
Oregon